Problematic smartphone and social media use among undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic: In the case of southern Ethiopia universities

Abstract

Background Smartphone and social media use are supposed to be integral parts of university students’ daily lives. More specifically, smartphones and social media are frequently used for communication in daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, uninterrupted and persistent use of these technologies may lead to several psychological problems. Even though smartphones and social media were used more frequently during the pandemic, there is no evidence suggesting that the studies were not undertaken in low-income countries, including Ethiopia. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess problematic smartphone use and social media use among undergraduate university students in southern Ethiopia. Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out among 1,232 university students using a simple random sampling technique. The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale and Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale were used to collect data on social media and smartphone use, respectively. The Beck Depression Inventory, Generalized Anxiety Assessment Tool, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index were standardized tools used to measure other independent variables. To identify factors, simple and multiple linear regression analyses were performed. A p-value of 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance. Results The overall response rate was 95%. The mean scores for problematic smartphone and problematic social media use were 17 ± 3.3/36 and 12.7 ± 2.2/30, respectively. A linear regression model revealed that being female, first-year students and poor sleep quality were significantly associated with problematic smartphone use. Factors associated with problematic social media use (PSMU) were depression, substance use, and urban residence. Conclusions This study identified significant problems with smartphone and social media use among university students. Therefore, it is preferable to provide psychological counselling, educate students about safe, beneficial, and healthy internet use, and focus on recognized high-risk groups in order to give them special attention. It is also preferable to seek counselling about substance use. It is preferable to regularly screen and treat individuals with psychological problems in collaboration with stakeholders.

COVID-19 fear among junior undergraduate nursing students during the pandemic in South Africa

“…The findings of Heffner et al ( 2021 ) are congruent with findings in Ghana reporting that large social media usage among female respondents increases COVID-19 fear levels (Malm et al 2022 ). Various studies reported that the excessive usage of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic was linked to high levels of anxiety among university students (Alhadi & Alhuwaydi 2021 ; Jiang 2021 ; Mengistu et al 2023 ). Mobile phone usage and accessing social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter drastically increased during the pandemic; access to a mobile device was important for students using online platforms for learning and social interactions (Jiang 2021 ; Mengistu et al 2023 ).…”

Socio-demographic and mental health correlates of internet addiction amongst Hong Kong university students under COVID-19

“…These findings are consistent with research prior to the pandemic indicating higher rates of IA among male students ( Liang et al, 2016 ; Vigna-Taglianti et al, 2017 ). However, Mengistu et al (2023) revealed an opposite trend by showing that only females were positively associated with problematic smartphone use during the pandemic. Besides, Shek et al (2023a) showed that gender was not related to IA in university students during the pandemic.…”

Assessment of the Excessive Rehearses of Smartphones Affected Symptoms on Sound Health of University Students in Bangladesh

“…A study about the frequent usage of smartphones and social media was conducted to find out the causes of psychological problems among university students in Ethiopia. Depression, drug addictions, and urban residences were the influencing factors of problematic smartphone usage and poor sleeping quality significantly associated (Mengistu et al, 2023).…”

“…It affects health hazards like sleeping problems, reduced physical fitness, the habit of eating unhealthy foods, pain, migraines, depression, anxiety, drug addiction, addiction to social networking, and so on. (Kheirinejad et al, 2023;Kumar et al, 2011;Mengistu et al, 2023;Rathakrishnan et al, 2021;Shaheen et al, 2015;Tyagi et al, 2021;Vasudev et al, 2012;Wacks & Weinstein, 2021;Wang et al, 2019;Wattanaudomchai et al, 2023), and influences addictive behavior (Billieux et al, 2015;Servidio et al, 2022;Wattanaudomchai et al, 2023) decreasing face to face conversation with relatives and result increasing loneliness (Kim, 2017;Shaheen et al, 2015). Different types of diseases like heart diseases, effects on the fetus, alzherian's disease, Parkinson's disease, brain tumor, male infertility, and ear impairment, digital eye strain were caused by excessive use of mobile phones (Chowdhury et al, 2019;Mohan et al, 2021;Suhag et al, 2016;Tyagi et al, 2021).…”

“…Problematic smartphone users have a higher level of depression and anxiety compared with non-problematic smartphone users (Eichenberg et al, 2020;Wattanaudomchai et al, 2023). Urban residence is one of the factors for using problematic smartphones (Mengistu et al, 2023) and hampered sound health (Turgeman et al, 2020).…”